Health and Family Welfare Minister Ashok Bhatt, who had categorically denied that the man had died of dropsy, almost sought to backtrack on his statement today, saying that police were still looking into the incident to ascertain the cause.

The Minister said Ramesh's widow and parents, who were also affected by dropsy, were being treated at their home. When asked whether the cardiac arrest which supposedly caused Bhatt's death was because of dropsy which also hit his family, the Minister said the police were looking into the incident and the health department would start probe when called in by police.

Meanwhile, nine more dropsy cases were admitted to New Civil Hospital here, taking the total to 33. All the victims were reported to have consumed the banned `Krishna' brand of groundnut oil. The hospital said their condition was stable.

But even as dropsy continued its steady rise, the health and food and drug control department remained perplexed about Abdul Razak and his family's claim that they had taken ill after consuming Surdhara brand of palmolein oil as the samples tested negative to argemone. Razak had claimed that he had earlier consumed a well-known cottonseed oil.

The Minister said the health department had decided to launch `Operation Dropsy' to comprehensively deal with the situation. He said six groups had been formed under the drive - Research Group, Case Management Group, At-Source Management Group, State Monitoring Group, Adulteration, Detection and Prevention Group, and Media Group.

Meanwhile, municipal commissioner B K Sinha banned the Krishna and Mohan brands of palmolein oil and Trimurti brand of cottonseed oil till further notification.

He said the samples of these brands had been sent for laboratory tests. He said in the past few days the municipal corporation had taken samples of various brands and types of oil, but none contained argemone. He said so far no case of dropsy was reported from the city.

According to him, checking of samples has been expedited, putting the entire health department on the job. So far the corporation has tested 203 samples of oil, and seized 63 tins of Mohan, Krishna and Trimurti brands on suspicion.